Why is the definition of genre controversial and not so applicable to the formation of digital genres? You may use the iPhone as a case.
The simple definition of a genre is a class or category of artistic endeavor having a particular form, content, technique. This is simple when discussing genres such as music and television because there are rarely cases which contain aspects of more than 1 or 2 genres, but when discussing digital genres it can be much more difficult to categorize digital functions so neatly into separate genres because digital technology is always changing and evolving enabling more abilities, especially converging current digital technologies together.
An example of how much digital genres can converge into a single technology is the Iphone. You might first think the Iphone could simply be placed in the digital genre of a cell phone, but it's technology is much more advanced and has the abilities to be placed in the genre of music player, web browser, entertainment system and with the millions of apps available for download, the possibilities of the Iphone are almost endless, making it able to fit in many digital genres. An example of this is Obama’s use of the Iphone when creating his own app promoting his presidential campaign which allowed users to send campaign information to friends, making it interactive and even reminding users of important voting and registration dates. This app allowed people to use their cell phones to not only get information on the campaign, but also be involved in the promotion of Obama's campaign and further promote their interest and importance of voting to their friends and family. This makes the placement of the Iphone into a digital genre even harder, blurring the lines of the digital genre it could belong to even more as it fits into phone and even political campaign genres. More digital genres are only going to be more converged as technology continues to evolve, making it even harder to classify things into specific digital genres.
The simple definition of a genre is a class or category of artistic endeavor having a particular form, content, technique. This is simple when discussing genres such as music and television because there are rarely cases which contain aspects of more than 1 or 2 genres, but when discussing digital genres it can be much more difficult to categorize digital functions so neatly into separate genres because digital technology is always changing and evolving enabling more abilities, especially converging current digital technologies together.
An example of how much digital genres can converge into a single technology is the Iphone. You might first think the Iphone could simply be placed in the digital genre of a cell phone, but it's technology is much more advanced and has the abilities to be placed in the genre of music player, web browser, entertainment system and with the millions of apps available for download, the possibilities of the Iphone are almost endless, making it able to fit in many digital genres. An example of this is Obama’s use of the Iphone when creating his own app promoting his presidential campaign which allowed users to send campaign information to friends, making it interactive and even reminding users of important voting and registration dates. This app allowed people to use their cell phones to not only get information on the campaign, but also be involved in the promotion of Obama's campaign and further promote their interest and importance of voting to their friends and family. This makes the placement of the Iphone into a digital genre even harder, blurring the lines of the digital genre it could belong to even more as it fits into phone and even political campaign genres. More digital genres are only going to be more converged as technology continues to evolve, making it even harder to classify things into specific digital genres.